Baseball: Exciting Pitching Duel Ends with Extra-Inning Controversy

The St. Francis baseball team defeated La Salle 5-2 on Saturday behind strong pitching from Joey Malham and Tei Vanderford along with three gift-wrapped runs in the eighth inning.

Described as a “friendly rivalry” by St. Francis coach Brian Esquival, the neighboring private schools each sent its ace to the mound in the opening game of the St. Paul Tournament. Bowdien Derby threw five solid innings for the Lancers, allowing one run and striking out five, while St. Francis starter Malham threw six innings allowing two runs.

La Salle scored first in the second inning when sophomore Nick Brown smacked a first-pitch fastball over the left fielder’s head for an RBI-double.

“Nick’s really coming into his own,” La Salle coach Harry Agajanian said. “He’s made a few adjustments to his swing and it’s paying off.”

St. Francis (10-10) evened the score in the fourth inning when Jeff Garavaglia led off with an infield single and then stole second base. Derby managed to strikeout Knights slugger Dave Hubinger and induce Vanderford to groundout. But Anders Schraer came through with a single to left field, driving in Garavaglia.

Seemingly cruising, Derby was forced to leave the game after five innings when he hit his maximum weekly innings pitched rule of 10 innings. Reliever Garry Goebel was effective but unlucky.

Goebel struck out David Olmedo-Barrera to open the sixth inning, but a passed ball allowed Olmedo-Barrera to reach base safely. Garavaglia followed with an ideal double-play ball, but shortstop Steve Petrovich double-clutched his throw and both runners were safe.

After a wild pitch advanced the runner to second and third, La Salle elected to intentionally walk Hubinger.

Then, in a crazy twist, catcher Nate Bouton visited the mound, but forgot to call timeout. Olmedo-Barrera made a break for the plate and Bouton raced back and dove to tag Olmedo-Barrera out at the plate.

“I told the team that it was my decision to send (Olmedo-Barrera) and I’ll live with it,” Esquival said. “I don’t mind mistakes if we’re being aggressive.”

Goebel almost got out of the inning unscathed by inducing another double-play ball, but second baseman John Auer overthrew first base on the turn, allowing Garavaglia to score.

With La Salle (12-7) trailing for the first time all game, Chris Williams led the bottom of the sixth inning off with a walk and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt. With the tying run in scoring position, Brown came through again for the Lancers by hitting a towering flyball off the left-field fence for an RBI double.

“I was looking fastball all day,” said Brown. “In my third at-bat, (Malham) fell into a 2-0 count and I was looking for his fastball again.”

Goebel worked a 1-2-3 top of the seventh inning and Vanderford was equally effective relieving Malham in the bottom half. However, Goebel’s bad luck returned in the eighth inning.

Facing Schraer with the bases loaded and two outs, Goebel got a strikeout on a curveball in the dirt. But Bouton couldn’t block the ball and Schraer raced to first while Olmedo-Barrera raced home.

Bouton scrambled to the backstop and threw to Brown at first base for a very close play. The base umpire ruled Schraer out, supposedly delivering Goebel out of the jam, but the home plate umpire deliberated with his partner and eventually reversed the call to ‘safe’.

“The home plate umpire said he had a better angle of the play and saw (Brown)’s foot come off the bag while he tried to make the catch,” Agajanian said. “I thought he made the catch and then his foot came off.”

The sudden 360-degree change in emotion may have affected Goebel’s pitching because he beaned the next batter and then threw a wild pitch, allowing two more runs to score.

“It’s a tough way to for them to go down,” Esquival said. “But we’ve all had calls go against us at some point.” 

Vanderford shut the Lancers down in order in the bottom of the eighth to pick up the win. St. Francis will now face the winner of St. Bonaventure vs. Long Beach Wilson on Monday, while La Salle will face the loser.

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